


How Long a Time Lies in one Little Word

by Rune_Vanyarin



Category: Richard II - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, Parallel Universes, Surrealism, it isn't narrative, this barely even gets to count as a "fic"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-26 00:01:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3829741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rune_Vanyarin/pseuds/Rune_Vanyarin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Bard's Birthday Exchange, working with Shakesankle's prompt for "Richard II, parallel universes, and god meta". I may have gotten a bit carried away with the parallel universes aspect. </p><p>The idea here is sort of that various productions or interpretations of the play represent various parallel universes.<br/>My initial approach was to take this concept and make a narrative of it, but instead it ended up a sort of AU meta thingum from an in-story perspective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Long a Time Lies in one Little Word

They talk of parallel universes, but there are more universes than just the parallel ones, there are also the perpendicular universes. Universes which run across the parallel universes and intersect them at thousands of variations of the same point. Universes where time doesn’t flow or pass, but whirls endlessly around itself at one specific point.

And then there are the gods. There are gods that preside over all the universes, there are gods that only exist in specific universes, gods who only exist at the instant where universes cross, gods of men, gods of things other than men, gods who care, gods who do not care, gods alone unto themselves in their own universes, and gods who come in droves and fill their universes up, small gods and great, new gods and old, and every here and there is a universe without gods.

And throughout and above all these universes, and swirling amidst all these gods and godlessnesses, are narratives. Stories are universal, (or, perhaps more accurately, multiversal) the currency of always and the one thing in common to all the parallel universes. The perpendicular universes, being without linear time, do not have narratives as such, but still encounter them if they cross the linear universes at the right points.

A perpendicular universe. A universe which crosses the others at the point where a certain bit of story is told. A narrative event, abstracted from one reality, reshaped into fiction, and thus applied to all the universes.  
A king is banishing his cousin.  
The king is petty and the cousin as yet blameless, the king is vengeful and the cousin presumptuous, the king regretful and the cousin who knows more than he should, the king is spiteful as is his cousin, the king as wise as the cousin is treacherous.

None of this is really happening, it's fiction, but it is happening endlessly and each iteration bears a trace of the actual king from one specific point of linear time.

Another universe, a king sits on the coast of Wales and mourns his kingship.  
A king ordained by God, a king who is himself a god, a king who mistakenly thinks himself a god, a king who has failed his gods, a king who believes in gods who do not exist. Infinite kings and infinite gods, swirling within one particle of time, all at once, none contradicting the other.

Another. A king is deposed. Deposes himself. Allows himself to be deposed. Is thrown down by god, has betrayed his gods, has failed to hold on to his own godhood. A king going out with a bang, a king making a last desperate effort to retain his kingship.


End file.
